Joel Freedman: CNN has its own trust issues

Tuesday

Sep 12, 2017 at 2:01 AM

Joel Freedman

Among many disagreements I have with President Donald Trump, I am deeply saddened by what he has done to eliminate or weaken already inadequate protections of our environment, of defenseless animals,and of vulnerable people in nursing homes and other facilities. I agree with CNN’s claim that Trump has credibility and impulse control issues, but CNN has its own truth issues that need to be addressed.

While I didn’t vote for Trump, I appreciate his re-establishment of strong support for Israel and his commitments to improving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ care of disabled veterans. I also recognize that not all of CNN’s accusations against Trump are justified.

Contrary to CNN reports, Trump did not say there were many fine people among the neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, while chanting their racist and anti-Semitic beliefs. Trump actually said there were many fine people who are not affiliated with hate groups who oppose the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue for cultural and historical reasons. Trump also said there were many fine people who believe this statue should be removed. If there was any ambiguity about what Trump said or meant, CNN should have sought clarification before condemning Trump.

Trump condemned the neo-Nazis and the KKK. He also condemned the violence of many of the counterprotesters, particularly anti-fascist members, in Charlottesville. Even CNN — briefly and perhaps reluctantly — acknowledged antifa contributed to the violence in Charlottesville. Therefore, it was proper for Trump to condemn the violence “on both sides.”

White supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. is accused of using his car to kill 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring several others who were staging a counterdemonstration against the hate groups. Trump decried this violence, and denounced Fields as a murderer. But when Trump wanted to phone Heyer’s mother to convey his deepest sympathies, she refused to speak to him because she apparently believed CNN’s unsubstantiated claims that Trump was sympathetic to the right-wing hate groups. Actually, some hate group members have attacked Trump for “giving his daughter to a Jew.”

CNN apparently believes Trump’s wish to console Heyer’s mother was insincere and hypocritical. But I suspect if Trump had not attempted to contact Heyer’s family, CNN would have accused him of being indifferent to a grieving family.

When CNN’s Brooke Baldwin invited Bill Starnes, a member of the North Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans, to express his opposition to removing the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Baldwin was argumentative.

Baldwin: “Let’s talk about the pain in this country. You know when you look at a place like Germany, where they don’t force Jewish children to attend a school named after Adolf Hitler, it is the same for a lot of African-Americans attending a school named after Robert E. Lee. What do you say to the, let’s not, fact is one thing, feelings is another. Do you acknowledge those feelings of those Americans?”

Starnes: “Well, facts are one thing, and feelings are another. And the truth on this to pure fact is Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler have a lot more in common than Robert E. Lee and Adolf Hitler. Robert E. Lee did not kill civilians, Abraham Lincoln did.”

Baldwin: “What?!!”

Starnes: “The Union army came into the South and killed over 70,000 Southern civilians, men, women and children, black and white, slave and free, so yeah, they did that; you can study some history and find that out. It’s very easy to look at. As far as comparing Robert E. Lee and Adolf Hitler …”

Baldwin: “Abraham Lincoln, anti-slavery, as a result of that, states wanted to secede. I don’t think we want to compare Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler.”

At this point, Baldwin abruptly ended the interview and quickly switched to speaking to someone else.

I would agree with Baldwin — it is wrong to compare Lincoln to Hitler — but Starnes is entitled to his opinion, which he expressed only after Baldwin wrongfully compared Lee to Hitler. Instead of treating Starnes so rudely, I wish Baldwin and Starnes had discussed the pros and cons of whether hundreds of highways, bridges, schools and other buildings in Southern states that are named after Confederate leaders or Confederate soldiers should be renamed.

I realize Confederate monuments can be painful reminders of slavery and other injustices against African-Americans. If local government wants to remove such monuments, that is fine with me. I can disagree with but still respect the viewpoints of people who want to retain these monuments for historical reasons.

The History Channel on July 9 aired a documentary that, in my opinion, substantiates that Amelia Earhart, the world’s favorite aviatrix, was captured and probably executed on Japanese-occupied Saipan.

Two days later, a Japanese blogger claimed the photograph that the documentary claimed probably showed Earhart after her capture was taken from a book published in Japan in 1935, two years before her around-the-world flight. Without any further investigation of the blogger’s claim, CNN ridiculed the documentary, proclaiming “You might as well put this photo in the fun-while-it-lasted file.”

Shortly thereafter, Earhart researcher Richard Martini reported that “the book” cited to discredit the photograph is actually an uncopyrighted portfolio of photographs tied together with a string. None of the photos in this portfolio are dated. And on July 16, the Republic of the Marshall Islands reported that the dock in the controversial photo was not built until 1936; therefore, the photo could not have appeared in a book published in 1935.

CNN, perhaps to avoid embarrassment over its premature debunking of the photo, has not reported any of this recent news. And when CNN debunked the photo, it also, without explanation, debunked the other evidence of Earhart’s capture by the Japanese that was presented in the documentary produced by a rival channel.

Last year, I wrote to the then-five remaining presidential candidates to urge them to speak out about the need for nursing home reform and for developing a plan to better protect nursing home residents from mistreatment, including camera surveillance monitoring. I also asked them to publically express strong support for the efforts of the bipartisan Congressional Animal Protection Caucus and for its legislative priorities. No replies to my concerns. I sent copies of my letters to CNN’s Anderson Cooper. I advised him that “to the best of my knowledge, the questions you have asked the contenders have not included coverage of these issues. My hope is that you will decide the issues I raised are important enough for you to include in future questions you ask the candidates.”

No reply. CNN staff never raised these issues with any of the presidential candidates. Why not?

I disagree with President Trump’s recent claim that “journalists [who oppose his presidency] are sick people who don’t like our country.” I believe the news media should actually intensify its efforts to make sure our government always performs at its highest caliber. But I also want CNN and other major news media to do a better job of adhering to the highest journalistic ethics and standards in carrying out their important mission.

Joel Freedman, of Canandaigua, is a frequent Messenger Post contributor.